Running From
by NerdyxFlavoredxAwesome
Summary: Wherein Barry grapples with all the things that have happened to him so far and longs for Iris. (Set in the middle of season 2.)
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the characters in the _Flash._

Set in the middle of Season 2 (ep. 16 roughly).

Chapter 1

Barry sits, twiddling his thumbs in his lap, as Cisco finishes explaining his fan-theory for the conclusion of _Game of Thrones._ Barry intermittently nods.

"I know I'm probably going to regret it, but what do you wanna talk about," Cisco asks.

_I wonder what Zoom is doing right now. I wonder how many people have died on Earth 2 because we didn't stop him. _Barry looks up and pauses for a second before he begins.

"Standford conducted a psychology experiment in the 60s where they put a marshmallow in front of a kid. They'd tell the kid that the researcher was leaving the room, but if the kid could wait and not eat the marshmallow until the researcher returned, the kid could get two marshmallows," says Barry moving his manic energy into swirling his cup of extra caffeinated 'Flash' coffee, "They were studying delayed gratification."

"Cool? Where are you going with this—," Cisco says appraising Barry with a questioning look.

"I just...I feel like…" Cisco waits. "...Iris is my marshmallow test."

Cisco purses his lips and leans back in his high-chair. "Mmm so you're saying that if you wait, you can have...two...Irises?"

_With the existence of the multiverse, it is possible_, thinks Barry, _but the probability… _He starts to wonder what qualifies as probable, as real, anymore. He wonders again how Eddie's sacrifice isn't enough to stop Eobard—how Eobard still exists to haunt him. He wonders how Jay could fool him, fool everyone, so thoroughly. _Didn't I learn my lesson with the last version of Wells?_

Cisco pokes Barry between the eyes, "Earth to Barry."

"Hm? I mean, no. _No_. I mean that—-I mean that I feel like I'm being tested." Barry leans over the table. "We both saw the by-line on that article from 2024: 'Iris West-Allen.' I mean…" Barry waves his hands and gives Cisco a meaningful look. Cisco squints back.

"Yeah, and we also saw that the Man in Yellow came from 2024. And then we saw him disintegrate like some sort of Voldemort here, in 2016, at S.T.A.R Labs."

Barry opens his mouth, but Cisco continues, "I also died last year in an alternate timeline? So I don't know, man, time's not really straightforward."

Barry's mouth snaps shut. The first thought to cross his mind is that that was also the timeline in which Iris confesses her love to him. He starts to argue that the Man in Yellow came back, or that Iris and him are married on Earth 2, or that maybe—just maybe—his love for Iris is a fixed point in time that has to yield their being together. He wonders if there is any point in time for him, any point that ensures his well being or peace of mind. _Maybe I'm antithetical to continuity of time, and this is my punishment. _Cisco's waiting for his comeback.

Barry nods conceding, "Ok you're right. Time's not set in stone and we definitely changed the timeline." He pauses for a long moment switching tactics,"But Iris has been at S.T.A.R Labs a lot lately and you've been working together on stuff right?"

"Yeah?"

"And she likes to be there-" It's not a question, but Barry leaves it hanging in the air for Cisco.

"I think so," Cisco says bemusingly watching Barry unroll what he already knows will be a drawn out line of reasoning.

"And we're—Iris and I—," Barry clarifies, before he's interrupted again.

"Are you asking me _when_ I think Iris will be in love with you? Should I like use my powers or is this a hypothetical or—"

"No!" Barry yells abruptly. Various people in line for coffee and lounged around the shop turn to look at him and Cisco. Barry is bright red, Cisco is holding in a laugh. Barry looks directly into his coffee and wonders whether or not he can open a singularity here and now to suck him out of this nightmare.

Time seems to crawl to a stop. Time is a circle, and he's having this conversation on a constant loop—Picking petals off a flower like a child, waiting for the last petal to be "she love me" at last. His cheeks burn from the embarrassment. Why did he ask Cisco anyway? Why has he brought this up to Felicity, and Joe, and Caitlin? _Stupid. _The hot feeling in his face seems to intensify into a wet heat behind his brown lashes. His brows knit together and suddenly he needs air. He pushes the his chair back from the table, "I just remembered: I've gotta go help with police stuff," he mumbles. He manages a choked "sorry" before rushing away. Outside he picks a direction and runs as fast as he can.

He runs around Central City, what feels like, a couple hundred times. He sees a montage of explosions, buildings falling, the sky opening, the air rippling into breaches. _Faster. _Yet there is no street, no alley, no corner that his failures have not touched. He runs to Starling City. Scenery blurs by him. He wonders how all these people can just carry on with their day as though everything is alright, as though it's safe to be here. Maybe without him there it is safe. It's a mixed blessing that no one from the station or S.T.A.R Labs calls. Part of him would love to throw everything at a deserving meta, but he keeps running. He runs for miles. _Faster. _

He thinks he can outrun himself.

He doesn't know where he's going until he's there. Then three miles outside of Central City, in the crater Ronnie and Professor Stein created separating from one on another, Barry stops. He blasts the crater hole deeper with his lightening. He punches the burned husks of trees and throws rocks. Every undulation of the ground carries the face of a meta he's tried to stop. Every scorched branch is a family who lost someone because he was too slow to save them. The wind mutters, "too slow, too slow." When his body finally gives out, he slumps to his knees. A futile cry escapes his lips. Then he screams—louder—into the empty air.

He's throwing a tantrum like a child and he knows it, but the catharsis of release is too overwhelming to stifle. Hot tears roll down his face leaving pink streaks through the dirt.

Barry stays in the crater until the stars have come out in their full splendor. _I'm so small, _he thinks, _and so pathetic._ The growl of his stomach rouses him at last. Reluctantly he returns to Central City. As he crosses out of the wilderness his phone vibrates: 6 missed texts.

_Cisco: if your finished at CCPD come check out mods I made to my glasses! #dopeAF_

_Cisco: k I can't wait anymore *attachment*_

_Joe: Wally and Iris are comingfor dinner_

_Joe: We're getting Chinese takeout. Want anything?_

_Cisco: Dude, I really need you to acknowledge the badassery I've created here…_

_Iris: Dad just told asked Wally if he's ever heard of Billy Holiday and now he's singing XD. Where are you? _

He also has 2 missed calls and voicemails from Joe and Iris. His green eyes fix to the screen blankly for several seconds before he slips the phone back into his suit with a sigh. The thought of Chinese food appeals to his stomach. It's 2:34AM, Wally and Iris have probably gone back to their own houses by now.

He opens the door as quietly as possible.

"Welcome back, Bar," says Joe from the couch.

"Joe. You're still awake," Barry sighs.

"Well it's 3 in the morning and my son, who happens to be a superhero didn't come home and wasn't answering his calls."

Barry sighs too exhausted to reply and slouches into the kitchen. "Is there still Chinese food," he asks opening the beer he finds on the counter and rummaging through the refrigerator. He finds a stack of takeout cartons behind the orange juice and dumps them unceremoniously into a mixing bowl.

"Barry," says Joe from behind him, moving out of the way as Barry pulls the biggest available fork from the drawer. "What's going on with you?"

"Jus- hungry," Barry slurs between giant bites. Joe continues waiting for a real answer. After half an hour of watching his son eat through the leftovers, the Cheerios, the tuna salad, the oatmeal creme pies, and the bananas, Joe realizes that Barry's not talking and that he has to be at CCPD in less than 5 hours. He squeezes Barry's shoulder before heading upstairs,"You're buying groceries."

As Joe disappears Barry pulls out his phone and listens to the message Iris left him on his voicemail. Her voice is so bright. When he closes his eyes he can see her laughing as she recounts dinner. The message concludes,"...I missed you tonight. Even with Wally here, it's not really a family meal without you. Call me, let's have coffee or something soon."

He doesn't realize he's been holding his breath until it rattles out of him.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

It's not that it's never occurred to him that he can "pause" the people around him by moving at Flash-speeds, it's just that there's generally a morality to doing it—people that need saving, metas that need stopping.

There's no morality in this.

Iris stands before him frozen mid-stride. Her white pencil skirt is snug along her hips and ass, her well-muscled legs extending for miles before slimming into heeled feet. The "v" of her black silk blouse is pulled open by the wind he sweeps around her, exposing the top curve of her breast, the delicious line of her neck as it dives into her shoulder. She's between blinks. Her brown eyes are closed leaving him to look at thick lashes and angled cheeks and full lips. The heady scent of her skin thickens the air as it mingles with the shea butter smell of her hair.

He rotates her like a curate appreciating a cut of marble, unconsciously tracing her in the air, careful not to touch.

He rotates her like a shark hunting a seal, steadying itself to strike.

He could have her. He could whisk her away right here and no one would know. No one could stop him. He could lay her bare and taste her before she could even finish blinking.

He could.

Iris' black heels click against the pavement. She adjusts her blouse and hair recovering her well groomed appearance from the unexpected breeze, oblivious to the source. Her hands press into the door and she disappears inside the Central City Picture News headquarters.

What else is there to say to someone who's already rejected you twice? Someone who insists they love you, but isn't _in love _with you? Someone whom you need more than anyone—

"—what do you think, Barry? Barry?"

"Sorry?"

"What do you think about making these adjustments to the jump spots we created to re-open the breaches," repeats Caitlin in a stiff monotone. Even though he's not quite here, Barry can tell Caitlin is still hurting. _It's my fault, we shouldn't have trusted Jay. _Barry speed reads the document in front of Caitlin and examines the series of equations scrawled across the whiteboard. He doesn't want to think about how hurt Caitlin is, or about Jay, or Zoom.

His mind returns to the only safe haven it can find. He thinks about the cling of Iris' skirt. The memory is tantalizing, if not tainted with accusation. He shouldn't do it again, but he's already forgetting the how the light reflected off her skin. He rereads the sentence on frequency shifts.

_By altering the Gaussian filter to include multiple… _

He strains to remember whether the Iris he kissed in the alternate timeline tasted the same as Earth 2 Iris', and whether the Iris here on Earth 1 now tastes like either. He wonders what Kafkaesque timeline he's living in.

_By altering the Gaussian filter to include multiple… _

He imagines the swell of Iris's hair as it floats suspended in time. _Like an ink blot, _he thinks, _in a Rorschach test that indicates 'obsession'. _He laughs derisively.

"Did you say something," asks Caitlin typing.

"Nothing, sorry."

_By altering the Gaussian filter to include multiple… _

He remembers that Iris's lips are warm and soft when they part over his. The heat of her mouth as she slides her tongue against his too much to bear. Her smell washes over him as she pulls him closer, her hips colliding with his. His skin is on fire and he's out of breath. But this is the wrong Iris. She looks like same, but she has no idea who he is, or she doesn't exist anymore. But why does he care, isn't it all real? Why is his mind reminding him of this when his body wants to continue to live in the memory of her.

_Return to S.T.A.R Labs,_ he tells himself. _You're helping Caitlin._

_By altering the Gaussian filter to include multiple… _

"Barry," purs an imagined Iris. His phone vibrates with an incoming text. He nearly jumps out of his skin. He's taken this too far. He should have said something to Iris years ago when she might have said yes. _Iris doesn't want me, _he admits to himself for the first time. _Iris doesn't want me. She doesn't want me. She doesn't. _The room is stifling all of a sudden. It's like he's being squeezed. His hands shake.

"Caitlin, I think you should have Dr. Wells look at it," says Barry heading for the door.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

"It's nice to see you outside of the lab," she smiles. Earnestness radiates from her. The comfort of her just being near, salves the ache in him. His heart beats into his teeth and he struggles to control the fluttering feeling that overwhelms him.

_It's nice to see you in any context. "_Yeah, I'm sorry I haven't been around. Just, you know, extracurricular work," he says knowing she understands the innuendo.

"Dad says that's why you missed our family dinner the other day."

Barry nods accepting the out. Iris brown eyes scan him. "Don't you usually work with him on this kind of stuff?" She waits as Barry to formulates his answer. He knows he can't lie, but to admit that he was having a meltdown—is still melting down—feels too much like admitting he loves her again. Her eyes are suddenly too much, he looks at his palms hovering by his coffee. The skin around his right knuckles is cracked and red. He traces the lines trying to remain here with Iris instead of thinking of King Shark and why he was sent through the breach. _And how he killed 15 people because of me. _

She wraps her fingers around his, her touch ripping through him like lightning. He wants to press them tighter, to put them to his lips, to pull her close, to be heated by her skin, to run away. _To run into oblivion. _There no place he'd rather be. He'd rather be anywhere else.

"You don't have to tell me where you were. It must be intense," says Iris softly, "to have so much on your shoulders. I can't imagine working at CCPD, S.T.A.R Labs, _and_ being the Flash." Her eyes melt him. "Just tell me that you're ok."

_Is this real?_ He was sure that time was linear. Twice he was sure that he could trust Dr. Wells. He was sure that he could save Eddie, and Ronnie, and Jay. He was so sure he could finally save his mom. Now it feels like he can't be sure of anything, let alone who or what to trust. _None of the Iris' I've met have been untrustworthy. _That hurts him more than anything.

He wants so much to unload the weight he's carrying.

Her hands are tender and warm. Her skin is _so_ soft. Beneath his shirt his ribs are bruised. His knees are scabbed. A cut is healing on his cheek. To burden Iris with all this feels like giving her his wounds. He imagines her bloodied and bruised. The memory of glass impaling her shoulder jars him. _No. _He flinches.

"Barry, I know you think that everything that turns out badly is your fault." _I __**know**_ _it's my fault. I wasn't fast enough to stop any of it. "_You feel like you're not strong enough or fast enough. But Barry," she whispers lingering on his name, his chest flutters, "I think you're wrong. I think that you're incredible."

Barry sobs. He can't help it. It's too much. It's too generous. He doesn't deserve her trust in him.

Without letting go of his hands Iris stands up and wraps him in her arms. Iris takes him home. She doesn't ask him to say anything. Iris just holds him. Pain floods him, pricking his scars, depressing his bruises, needling his mind. But Iris floods him too and in the end there is more Iris than pain.

It takes a long time to be washed out. Afterwards he feels almost empty, but he feels cleaner, like he can hope again.

-END

Thanks for reading! :)


End file.
